Market Farming

[Lucy Goodman-Owsley <goodows AT excite.com>]

On Fri, 18 Feb 2000 17:10:01 -0500, market farming wrote:

>  As I am finalizing seed orders etc. for our market garden I am vowing
>  again this year to have a better handle on the weeds.  Our main
>  vegetables will be squash, tomatoes, peppers, corn, beans and soybeans.
>  Any helpful hints?  I am planning on planting clover in with the
>  squash.  How does this work for any of you?  We have a mechanical
>  transplanter that does not plant thru plastic so if we use plastic mulch
>  it will have to be planted by hand and that seems overwhelming to me.  I
>  have used mulch hay with a little success on the tomatoes and peppers
>  last year but the mulch hay broke down too soon and the weeds came thru
>  so I am looking for another way to handle that his year.  thank you.
>  Sue

Sue,
Use straw mulch, not hay mulch. Hay mulch is usually loaded with weed seed
and can make weed problem much worse. Since you are cert organic and OEFFA
requires using cert organic straw as an input when you buy bales of straw
open a bale or two before you buy to check for weed seed (espcially
Thistle). if the bales are full of debris don't buy and find another source
or if there is no other source don't pay full price and you will have to do
a lot of separating.
We use plastic mulch and do a lot of hand planting. I know the thought of 2
to 3 thousand tomato/pepper plants being put out by hand is daunting but one
thing you can do is plan a work day and get some help planting. We have done
this for the past 2 years and it has made life a lot easier. We ask friends
and CSA members to help out and usually have some sort of potluck
afterwards. My husband will often make a batch of homebrew for the event. 

I read either I believe in GFM that a study was done on plastic mulch that
showed it had lots of erosion problems and also it would shed chemicals into
the environment at up to 19 times the rate of using other mulches or no
mulch at all. The scentists said bare ground was better than plastic. It was
in the latest issue (which has dissapeared on me in my less than neat house)

The other weed control, of course is to keep the weeds from going to seed-we
bought a sickle bar mower for our BCS last year to help us in that endeavor.
We also do a lot of light tilling and hoeing as well as the mulching. We use
both straw and IRT mulch. We use the IRT for early things, eggplant, okra
and melons who love the heat they give out, the tomatoes get straw as they
do better for us on straw than IRT.

Even with all the mulching and mowing we always have some weeds that go out
of control-last year it was red and green amaranth that once was a crop and
now is every where. Lambsquarter and thistle we have been battling since we
got here and they are about under control. Mustard is the newest weed
problem from a bad expirement of leaving the mustard in flower for the bees
and than watching it reseed itself on a much larger scale. At least most of
our weeds are edible and I have been known to harvest them at times.

Lucy's most hated weed is Garlic Mustard an import from England that is
taking over our woodlands. It has round leaves and small white flowers. It
is a biennieal and is quickly spreading all over the eastern US killing off
a lot of the natural understory of our eastern forests. It doesn't seem to
like full sun so it is not a big garden/farm field threat. Kill it if you
see it.
>


Lucy Goodman-Owsley
Boulder Belt CSA
New Paris, OH
Website: http://www.angelfire.com/oh2/boulderbeltcsa
Organic Farming and Gardening Forum:
http://www.InsideTheWeb.com/mbs.cgi/mb135705
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